WHOLE(30)Y MOLEY!

From Haleo to Paleo — My Journey Thus Far

 Well friends, I am back after a long hiatus, in which a WHOLE lot happened with my life. Fear not! I'm here with some exciting new content...

It's true. If the title didn't give it away, well, I'm doing Whole30! So far we are on day seven. No food. No air. No water. No showers....just kidding. It's not that extreme. However, it is fairly extreme from a nutritional standpoint. I'm not doing it to lose weight, if that comes out of it, then awesome, but I'm doing it to reset my digestive tract. Short synopsis, I have always had issues with digesting foods and all that good stuff, so I felt like eliminating some potential triggers might be helpful and informative. Also...I'm a sugar hound. It's probably best that we just leave it at that.

FAST FACTS ABOUT WHOLE30: 
No grains, legumes, dairy, mayo sugar, alcohol and soy (as far as I can remember). ALSO, no weird processed foods, smoothies (they prefer you avoid drinking your meals), dessert. The key is to eat whole foods and check your ingredients labels! I've discovered that sugar and soy lecithin is in literally everything​. 

We are on day seven, as I mentioned before, and things are actually looking better than expected. I'm doing this with my mom, which has been SO encouraging, since we used to be on the same sugar train back in February.  In the past week, we have learned that there are actually a lot of foods that we can have. Here's a guide to Whole30 shopping at Trader Joe's that I found online. 

Here's the meal plan thus far:

Breakfast:
Eggs, greens, any veggies on hand, avocado and the occasional sweet potato or Trader Joe's hash brown (POTATOES ARE ALLOWED!). If I'm in a hurry, I'll eat an RX Bar and have a banana, but if I work out before I need more nutrition sustenance. I'll drink coffee or tea with that, but because I cannot have my usual hazelnut creamer, I've been using my Vital Proteins Vanilla Coffee Creamer with a dash of Trader Joe's unsweetened coconut milk (the creamer is Whole30 friendly, as dictated on its packaging and is supplemented with collagen peptides — collagen peptides are good for your hair, skin and nails, while also giving you some protein! SO awesome). The aim is to have protein to stay full.

Lunch: ​
Typically, we will put together a super hearty salad with pumpkin seeds, avocado, cucumber, veggies and loads of whatever protein source we have on hand (sometimes chicken, and in today's case, steak from last night). When shopping at the homeland (Trader Joe's, if you haven't caught on thus far), my mom and I discovered they had three vegan, paleo, gluten-free (etc...) dressings that we could keep in the fridge. Typically at home we make lots of vinagrettes, but because all of us are working, this makes it easy when we need something in a pinch. Early on, we went for the Green Goddess dressing (avocado, basil, lemon juice, green onion, chives, basil and garlic), but this week, I'm trying out the Almond Butter Turmeric dressing (almond butter, turmeric, ginger, lemon juice and black pepper). That said,  lunch is filling, but I needed to supplement that 2:00pm tummy growl with a piece of fruit and some almonds/almond butter.

A couple nights ago, I pinned a recipe for Whole30, Paleo approved sweet potato white chicken chili. It had carrots, garlic, onions, Japanese white sweet potato, chicken, vegetable stock (no added sugar), green chilis, jalapeños and a bunch of yummy spices (cumin, oregano, chili powder). Long story short, you have options! TG4PINTEREST.

Dinner:
​Dinner has been different almost every night, but remains relatively simple. A couple nights we had steak, grilled veggies and a sweet potato. Last night I took the Trader Joe's carrot spirals and vegan pesto and mixed those together as a side to make it a little more exciting. Aside from steak, we made some paleo lettuce cups, no soy sauce of course, chicken apple sausage & peppers, and there have been a few "breakfast-for-dinner" nights. We continue to pin to gain inspiration! 

I'm only a week in, but I have slept SO well — better than I have slept in a really long time. Thus far, I have been fairly alert, but today is the "I need a nap day," as dictated by the Whole30 How You Should Feel Calendar and I feel a tad sluggish. I haven't felt bloated at all, which is INCREDIBLE. Then again, I'm pretty positive I'm lactose intolerant, but I refuse to admit it because there are just so many great dairy products.....which I can't have for another twenty-three days. But real talk, I could probably live without dairy and refined sugar.

After doing some research, I have located some paleo chocolate brands that I'm going to some serious recon on to find a good alternative. At home, we buy Enjoy Life chocolate chips/chunks/morsels/etc. because it's dairy free, but now, more than ever, I could seriously go for a massive hunk of dark chocolate...buuuuut now lemon water and tea!

For those of you wondering, I'm going to include some brands down here that are Whole30 approved:

• RX Bars
• Larabars
• Aidell's Chicken Apple Sausages
• Primal Foods Mayo (haven't tried it, but if you need mayo in your life...)
• A lot of Applegate meat products (check the label for sugar or soy)
• A lot of Trader Joe's products, just check this list 
  1. Vegan Kale pesto
  2. Almond Butter Turmeric Dressing/Cold pressed Green Goddess (same section)
  3. Plantain chips
  4. Kale chips (not my favorite, but you do you)
  5. Frozen turkey burgers
  6. Hashbrowns! THE POTATO! HARK!
  7. Cruciferous Crunch 

****That list also lies and says you can have coconut chips, but the ones that I saw at Trader Joe's have SUGAR. So. Yeah, no. 

Alright. Happy travels my friends. I continue on this journey, and I will get my act together and start posting more often. With that, I bid you adieu, and I'm sorry this was a mini novel. I'm not really that sorry because it's very informative and packed with TONS of great resources. Onward!